40gallon an aquarium stand
The tank sits on a square frame made from kiln-dried 2x4's. I chose themore expensive kiln-dried wood mostly because I was concerned about shrinkageof the frame pieces over time, but I suspect that kiln-dried wood willwarp less as well.
The frame looks something like the picture to the right. The edge onthe bottom of the tank just barely fits inside the 15-1/2" x 36-1/2" frame. This measurement is very critical, because I wanted to have a lip higherthan the tank bottom made up by the plywood pieces I used to make the framepretty on the outside. With a glass tank, I didn't need a solid topfor the stand, so I didn't make one. Another important feature ofa glass tank is that all of the weight (I figured 400 lbs for a 40 gallontank) is borne by the supports under the very edge of the tank. Ifmy tank were acrylic, I would probably use 3/4" plywood to make a top forthe stand.
I needed the bottom of the tank to be just over 40" from the floor,because my tank location is in front of a 40" tall half-wall in my livingroom. With the tank at this level, you can see into the tank fromboth sides, and it serves a dual-purpose as a room divider.
As you can see, I used only 4 2x4 legs to support the tank; ifmy tank was much bigger (especially if it was any longer), I would probablyput 2 additional legs on the long sides. The braces on the left andright of the stand are probably not needed, but I put them in to allowme to put 2 15" pre-fab shelves inside the cabinet for the canister filterand other hardware and supplies.
Dueto the location of the stand, I didn't want to have unsightly plumbingacross the back of the tank, so I use a canister filter below the tankin the cabinet, and I ran the intake and output hoses along the short sideof the aquarium. With this approach, I saw that I would need to havesome pathway to run hoses along the side of the tank down into the cabinet. I adjusted my plan for the exterior of the stand to allow a 2" gap betweenthe 2x4 frame and the 1/2" mahogany plywood I selected for the exterior. I had the plywood cut with 45° miters as shown in the picture to theleft. I installed 1/2" oak quarter round moulding along the top edgeof the exterior for a smooth top edge. I used the same quarter-roundmoulding along the left edge of the top to support an additional pieceof plywood to cover the 2" gap between the left side of the tank and theleft edge of the plywood.
Dueto the location of the stand, I didn't want to have unsightly plumbingacross the back of the tank, so I use a canister filter below the tankin the cabinet, and I ran the intake and output hoses along the short sideof the aquarium. With this approach, I saw that I would need to havesome pathway to run hoses along the side of the tank down into the cabinet. I adjusted my plan for the exterior of the stand to allow a 2" gap betweenthe 2x4 frame and the 1/2" mahogany plywood I selected for the exterior. I had the plywood cut with 45° miters as shown in the picture to theleft. I installed 1/2" oak quarter round moulding along the top edgeof the exterior for a smooth top edge. I used the same quarter-roundmoulding along the left edge of the top to support an additional pieceof plywood to cover the 2" gap between the left side of the tank and theleft edge of the plywood.
Thefront of the tank stand has a door hole cut 8" from each side, and 6" fromthe top and bottom. I used an identical piece of plywood (withoutthe door hole) for the back of the stand. The dashed lines in thepicture show the location of the frame pieces relative to the door. I used biscuits and glue to attach each plywood piece both to the adjacentplywood pieces and to the top and bottom rails of the frame. If youdon't have a biscuit joiner, you could probably get away with just gluingthe pieces to the frame, but you would have to use nails or screws to holdeverything tight until the glue dried. On the other hand, makingthe biscuit cuts took very little time, and you can probably borrow orrent a biscuit joiner, giving a much more sturdy frame. Note thatthe alignment of the biscuit slots on the top rail was tricky, since theplywood and rail don't have a common point to measure from.
Thediagram to the left is a detail of how the corners of the frame fit together. I used my router to make 3/4" deep cuts to allow the frame members to overlapenough for screws and biscuits to secure the frame together. Beloware pictures of the cuts needed in the top and bottom frame members toallow the legs to fit in place. For the top and bottom square frame,the cuts were 3/4" long, the cuts for the legs were 1" long to get a bitmore overlap.The top:
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The bottom:
Once I had everything together, I put some fancy oak floor mouldingaround the base of the stand, and used the piece cut out for the door alongwith some oak flat moulding to make a serviceable door. I finishedthe stand with 3 coats of clear spar varnish. After varnishing, I left it to dry for about 1 week before I moved it into the house and setthe tank on top of it.
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